The President Of Argentina Compared Her Country's Default To Violence In Gaza

Argentine President
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner speaks to supporters inside the
Casa Rosada Presidential Palace in Buenos Aires on
Thursday.Reuters

About 24 hours after Argentine politicians announced that they
would not follow a U.S. Court's order to pay over $1.3 billion in
bonds to a group of hedge fund creditors, the country's
president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, took to their national news
circuit.

In a speech given to adoring young Kirchnerites from inside the
Casa Rosada (the president's residence) she compared what is
happening to Argentina
to Israel's battle with Gaza.

"This situation thrust upon the Argentine people is also a form
of violence. It is a financial missile, which also costs lives,"
she said.

The missile she's talking about is the determination of the Court
and some rating agencies that the country is in "selective
default" — a term that, in her speech, Fernandez insisted doesn't
even exist. Argentina failed to pay holders of its 2033 sovereign
debt by the July 30 deadline.

Argentina did not pay because of a decade-long battle with some
hedge fund bondholders — known collectively as NML. In the
Republic these investors are known as "vultures," because they
bought bonds after the country's 2001 default and would not
restructure their debt and take a haircut like over 90% of
creditors.

So the government simply decided not to pay them. The investors
sued, and in June the Supreme Court upheld lower Court Judge
Thomas Griesa's ruling that all bondholders should be paid
together.

Because Argentina wouldn't pay the vultures, on July 30 Argentina
didn't pay anyone.

"They'll have to invent a new term for what this is," Fernandez
said, "because this is not default."

Of course, the crowd — Fernandez's base — went wild for this
speech. In parts of Argentine society there is a fervent love for
the storyline that the country is in a constant struggle against
a global hegemonic structure that seeks to undermine the
country's sovereignty at every turn.

[Argentines believe] that all their problems have to do with a
grand historic battle against imperialism, against domination,
against some evil-doers power who is looking to destroy them. The
images on posters in Buenos Aires that once said 'Branden or
Peron' now say 'Griesa or Cristina.' They're eloquent in that
way.

In her speech, Fernandez called for the country to stand in unity
against this new, unnameable aggression. She invoked the names of
late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and her late husband,
former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner, as if she were
speaking to their ghosts.

Few people use this rhetoric better than she does. Her Twitter photo album is
littered with images of Eva Peron.

Through the dramatization, though, a firmer view of what
Fernandez wants began to crystalize. She referred to a deal
Economy Minster Axel Kicillof had done with the Paris Club in
which payments were lowered after negotiations.

This is what she wants from the "vultures" — she wants them to
take a haircut, and she's willing to let her people suffer for
it.

"Argentina will pay 100% of its debts ... We offered them [NML]
an exchange, but they want 1600% return ... Argentina will
use all of the legal instruments at its disposal to have our own
contracts on this deal."

Fernandez even took a swipe at banker Jorge Brito, the Argentine
financier who is supposedly trying to broker a deal between NML
and other banks.

"I am like a statue," Fernandez said. "A few people who have
shown up in the last few days seem generous. To be Saint Martin,
though, you do not need to be on the newspaper as the savior of
the fatherland. More than anything, people like the guts and
honesty to call things what they really are, to not lie to
people."

Griesa called a meeting with Argentina's lawyers for Friday
afternoon.